Mumbai Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab’s crime was against humanity and “he has lost the right of getting humanitarian treatment”, the court said on Thursday, taking just 75 minutes to sentence the 26/11 terrorist to death.
Special judge M L Tahilyani ordered that “Kasab be hanged by his neck
until he is dead” on five counts, including committing a terrorist act. The court sentenced him for life on five other counts, including abducting the captain of the trawler Kuber, Amarchand Solanki, to kill him. Kasab and nine other gunmen had sailed to Mumbai from Karachi on Kuber.
As Tahilyani started reading out the reasons for giving him the maximum punishment, Kasab broke down. But a few minutes later, he became defiant and stopped showing any interest in the proceedings.
“He kept telling us to get him out as he wanted to drink water,” one of his four police watchers later told HT.
The court told K P Pawar, the defence lawyer, that it had rejected the argument that Kasab was under duress and influenced by Lashkar-e-Tayyeba leaders to execute the killing. “He can’t be reformed. There is evidence to prove he acted on his own and was mentally prepared to commit the crime,” Tahilyani said.